Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Signs your Identity Management project is in trouble

While I'm at it, here's another Top 10 list (Letterman style). I should point out that I'm not being serious this time...well, not really.

Of course, like Letterman's top 10 lists, it's a bit of a hit and miss affair. That is, sometimes the lists aren't funny at all (cringe-worthy even). Anyway, here goes...

Top 10 signs your Identity Management project is in trouble:

10. Each time you ask which systems need to be part of the Federation project, the person in charge says that the Borgs from Microsoft land and the Romulans from (insert random vendor here) are going to take some convincing.

9. The executive sponsor for your project actually carries a toy light saber to your meetings in case they need to "unleash the force" on the team (see my previous post for this reference to make sense).

8. The answer to every problem seems to be "why don't we use that darned Meta-Directory synchronisation thingamajiggy"?

7. The company implementing your project replaces their whole team and you don't notice for a week (note: this might actually happen if you go with a large multinational consulting company).

6. You ring the sales guy who sold you the software and his voice mail says he's on indefinite leave in the Bahamas.

5. You try the vendor's support number and it says they're in the Bahamas with the sales guy.

4. The help desk asks if you would like your head to be provisioned up where the sun don't shine when you call to say you can't reset your password.

3. When you click on the "I forgot my password" link, you're presented with a screen that says "Go look in the configuration file for the master password and reset your own damn password".

2. Your vendor says there will be a delay on the media (DVDs/CDs) because the police raided the warehouse yesterday and it'll take them time to burn you a new set in the "back shed".

And the number 1 sign that your Identity Management project is in trouble is...

You actually believed that everything you saw in the product demonstration would work in your environment without customisation.